To the tightness argument, he says “Tightness may be less about the structural limitation and more about your perception.”

He says that while stretching might help in the short term, it’s not a long-term solution to making you less tight.

As for the avoiding injury argument, he denies it and offers better solutions to avoid injuries, such as honing in your movement mechanics and selecting proper progressions that reflect your fitness level.

Finally, as for the obvious stretching making you more flexible, he says it doesn’t.

Or at least, not in a useful way. He does, however, acknowledge the ‘stretch tolerance’ concept.

The stretch tolerance principle says that the only way stretching makes you more flexible is by convincing your nervous system to become OK with a certain range of motions.

Your nervous system is designed to protect you, so if it feels threatened by a certain range of motion it will stop you from going there.

So the idea here is that the more you stretch, the more your nervous systems start to say to your body, “You’re good.

You’re not under serious threat,” which then allows you to gain a little more range of motion.

But Reid says that even if your nervous system does start to chill out and give you a little more range of motion as you static stretch, that this new range of motion doesn’t translate into active movements you do at the gym or in life.

In other words, you might be able to go a little deeper into the splits, but it ends there.

It’s just flexibility for the sake of flexibility, as opposed to helping you in any practical way.

Check out this infographic below for more about what he has to say:

So where does this leave us?

Again, it’s a bit like a diet.

There really is no one-size fits all approach. Often trial and error and using your body as a Guinea pig is the best approach.

If you feel like doing a couch stretch after a workout helps you, then do it!

And even if static stretching after a workout isn’t doing what you hoped it did, there’s another reason to stretch: It can be relaxing and sometimes it just feels good.